Ranger Suarez tossed his second straight seven-inning start and the Boston Red Sox scored in their final three at-bats en route to a 5-1 win over the visiting Kansas City Royals on Saturday afternoon.
Suarez (7-4) struck out eight, scattered five hits and allowed one run while completing his seven frames in 96 pitches as Boston (81-68) snapped its three-game losing streak.
Roman Anthony, Adley Rutschman and Nick Sogard each had multiple hits while Wilyer Abreu hit a two-run double that gave the Red Sox a sixth-inning lead they would not relinquish.
Carter Jensen’s 24th home run of the season marked the only scoring for Kansas City (66-83), which opened the series with a win Friday.
The Red Sox took the lead with two runs on three straight hits in the sixth. After Mickey Gasper and Rutschman knocked back-to-back singles to right to chase Royals starter Randy Dobnak (3-4), Abreu drove them home with a two-out double to deep center off reliever Anthony Gose.
The lead grew in each of the next two frames, beginning with Sogard hitting a leadoff double and scoring on Caleb Durbin’s RBI single off the Green Monster in the seventh.
After Garrett Whitlock struck out the side in the Royals’ eighth, Trevor Story and Sogard posted back-to-back doubles to plate another run.
Aroldis Chapman followed with a scoreless ninth to tab Suarez with the victory.
The teams plowed through three scoreless innings with just one baserunner: Bobby Witt Jr.’s one-out single in Kansas City’s opening frame. Suarez stranded him on third after recording back-to-back outs, including an inning-ending strikeout of Vinnie Pasquantino.
Suarez retired the Royals 1-2-3 on 10 pitches in the second and third innings while Dobnak faced the minimum, striking out three batters through the first third of the game.
In the fourth, Anthony turned a leadoff single through the right side into the opening run. After moving to second on Gasper’s grounder, Anthony scored when Rutschman knocked a single into center.
After finishing the fourth around Pasquantino’s two-out double, Suarez retired five straight before Jensen’s one-out solo homer inside Pesky’s Pole in the sixth. The southpaw stranded runners in the next two frames, including back-to-back strikeouts to cap the seventh.
